Daily Question: Thurs. Dec. 17

Wow, I can't believe it is the 17th already. Guess I better quit procrastinating and check my list twice to make sure I'm all ready.

What is Christmas like around your house? Are you staying in? Do you have somewhere else to go? Do you have family over?

My family doesn't really do Christmas anymore, no more kids in the fam.
We've always done Christmas even anyway.

The Cuban's fam does Christmas eve as well, Cuban tradition I believe he said.
So, I'll probably spend Christmas with a hungover Cuban and my parents.

We have Christmas at home. Open presents in the morning and then a big Christmas dinner with my family at my house...I have 12 for Xmas dinner this year!

Mom does the 7 fish feast on Christmas Eve. It's an Italian tradition. It's open door to family. Most don't come anymore now that they moved further away or got married. It's a shame really b/c as kids we always made an effort to show.

My FIL & his wife will be attending and spending the night so they can spend my son's first Christmas together. MIL is invited but lives around the street so it's an easy trip for her.

This weekend is the FIL's Christmas party, then Christmas eve here, hopefully home Christmas day if not MIL's, then the 26th is Hubby's family party. It's always the Saturday after Christmas.

We will be spending Christmas Eve with my sister and her family; her son and daughter are coming home for the Christmas weekend and we've been invited to spend our Eve with them. We'll have a appetizer-type kind of dinner, although my niece really wants grilled pizza (it's way too cold outside to be grilling pizza, but we're thinking about if anyway).

Our son and his family (2 grandchildren for us!) are coming home on Christmas Day this year and my husband's parents will also be spending the day with us. Between my son and I, we have the dinner menu planned and I have my time-line worked out. We will be having a stuffed crown roast of pork for our holiday entree.

We have ours at home on the 25th, and after that we'll be going over to Dh parents. My family has all moved away (on the side that I associate with) so this is going to be a hard year for me. Normally we go over on either Christmas Eve or Boxing day to their place.

DH's work party is this weekend, but I won't be going due to health issues. that DH has a wonderful time.

It's just me, Mom and my sister for most of Christmas Day and my brother (without my Sister-in-law) will fly in Christmas night. I'm hoping we'll open most of the presents that morning.

I usually go to my sister's house which is about 3 miles away. The whole family gets together later in the day and it's a nice family get together.

We also have the Italian fish entree's on Christmas Eve, I go to my sister's for that also. We share memories of our Mom who died 23 years ago on Christmas Eve, it was the saddest Christmas for me and we always speak of Mom moreso on the anniversary of her death. Of course we put the Christmas wreath on her and Dad's grave already.

We stay home. After stockings are opened , we make coffee . Jim makes belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. After we eat we open presents, play with the kids. When I am getting the turkey ready, Jim takes the kids sliding at the park or snowmobiling. We just have a quiet day enjoying each other. We have no immediate family here, I don't like to travel on Christmas day

My family hasn't celebrated Christmas together for a long time. My parents paid for a beautiful hotel in Greeneville, NC where we all got together 8 or 9 years ago? Maybe longer? My neice and nephew were pretty young, and she's in her 4th year of college and he's a Sr. in high school.

We'll call everyone - but we don't even send presents to each other anymore, just cards.

Gary's mom can't afford to fly out here.

So it'll be just the two of us and the fur kids. We'll probaby sleep in, and we have no particular plans. Play with the babies.

The more important day to us is the day after Christmas. It's our anniversary. This year will be 16 years. We used to celebrate with a nice meal and wine. We still have several bottles of wonderful wine left - haven't given them all away yet. But Gary can't drink alcohol at all - it's a major pain trigger. So maybe we'll just enjoy looking at one of them.

We haven't any real traditions in many years. My parents are gone and our siblings live in different states so anything we do is either by ourselves or with other "orphaned" people in the area.

This year will be interesting. Our neighbors have sort of adopted us and invited us over to their house for Christmas day. But since we're smoking all the meats and we have the bigger house, the party will be at our home this year. Their entire family (parents, siblings, nieces/nephews) will be here. I think we're hosting about 20 but we've invited more people that would otherwise be alone at Christmas.

And we're not really exchanging gifts this year. We're conserving money for a new stereo (both of ours broke recently), and a trip to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, which happens to be on the 30th.

It will depend when the niece and nephew and their families can make it in, but it will likely be at sis's house. Which is next door to me.

DD wants to go to Mass on Christmas Eve with me. I'm not really sure why---she doesn't attend church at all the rest of the year. I sort of feel like a hypocrite going, but since she's asked me I guess I will.
Christmas morning will be DH, DD, and myself. In the past we've always gone to my MIL's for lunch. This year (so far) she hasn't mentioned it, so I don't know what's going on. A few years ago she didn't ask us to come over until 11:30 Christmas morning. The phone rang and she said, "Are you coming over for lunch?" I already had lunch in the oven. You'd think she'd have learned.
Late afternoon we'll go to my Mom's house for a family supper with my 3 older brothers, younger sister, their spouses, and some of their kids and their kids' significant others. Mom cooks a huge ham and my SILs and I bring our specialty dishes and plates of cookies.

This year it will be a quiet morning at home with the pets and probably my Mum and Kieran. Around morning tea time we will go up to his parents house and do presents. Lunchtime will see us at my Nana's for a lunchtime feast and more presents. From then I'm undecided but I'll be coming home every few hours to check on Flutterby - who's due to have babies.

On Christmas Eve we go over to my parents' house with my sister and her family to have dinner and open gifts. On Christmas morning we have our Christmas (the three of us), and when we are done we go over to my in laws to have brunch/lunch and open gifts. We used to go back over to my parents' house to have a more formal dinner, but last year we didn't and my sister is trying to convince my mom not to again this year. I kind of like having some time to ourselves, b/c those two days are already hectic.

We have a bit of a busy Christmas.

DH and I usually celebrate just the two of us and the kitties on December 22nd, December 23rd is my Brother's birthday, December 24th we visit the extended family since they celebrate on Christmas Eve, December 25th we visit my immediate family (who live pretty close by) and by Boxing day we just fake out at home and enjoy our stuff and the sleeping in.

We used to try to jam most of that into just the 24th & 25th, but it was getting silly so we've split it out to have some downtime.

We are staying in Christmas Eve together and then Christmas morning we are going to DH's dad's house for Christmas. Then his mom's on the Monday to have a meal at her house.

We have tons of traditions for Christmas Eve but Christmas day is kind of boring. When we lived where my grandparents and aunts and uncles all live- we used to get together with each side of the family and grandparents would cook- pork with red wine and all kinds of side dishes. Now we live really far, and it is just me, my mom and my dad who live here with no other family. Sometimes my grandparents come over for Christmas- they did that for the last two years but this year they are saying they are too old to travel such a long flight (10 hours). So Christmas this year will consist of my parents cooking, fattening up, sleeping a lot, staying in my PJ's all day lol...thats about it. I like to go out to walgreens on Christmas day because there are very few people out, and walgreens is one of the few stores that are open...I buy all kinds of shampoo and lotions lol and enjoy the tranquility of shopping almost alone.

We all go up to mums for xmas lunch, and gifts in the afternoon.

I try to make it up to dads in the evening as it's my half sisters birthday, otherwise I see them the day after.